Working effectively in modern learning development requires two forms of collaboration: leveraging AI tools to speed up content creation and partnering with human colleagues to refine and enhance that content. Here are some things to consider as you build a more collaborative workflow with both your human and robot colleagues in this rapidly changing landscape.
Tip #1: Treat AI as a Starting Point, Not a Finish Line
When you prompt AI to generate a module outline, write scenarios, or create quiz questions, you're getting a first draft, not final content. All AI content needs human review before it’s ready to be published.
By now, most people can spot unedited AI-generated content a mile away and are a little hesitant to trust it. (I mean, how many movies do we have where the robots are untrustworthy? Like a lot!)
Humans are typically better writers than AI and have more creativity due to our experience and knowledge. What we typically lack is time, so if AI can give us a rough draft, we can get some of that time back to do more important things.
At a minimum, validate the AI's output. Don’t assume it isn’t lying to you. Trust, but verify is an important statement to keep in mind when working with both humans and AI. But honestly, it’s probably even more important to keep in mind when dealing with our robot coworkers.
Tip #2: Use AI for Time-Consuming Tasks, Humans for Strategic Decisions
AI is not here to replace humans; it’s here to augment what we are able to accomplish. Helping us get through time-consuming tasks so we can use our time to focus on higher-level thinking.
Stop asking "Can AI do this for me?" and start asking "How can AI help me do this faster?" You're not delegating responsibility—you're accelerating the initial phases of a task so you can spend more time on strategic decisions.
Take this very simple example, for instance: You can ask AI to give you five suggestions for where to go for dinner in a new city based on telling it where you are, what type of restaurant you are looking for, and how much you’d like to spend. But ultimately, you are the one who has to decide which restaurant fits your needs, travel there, and order from the menu. AI got you started, but you did the important part, and were deliciously rewarded for it, I might add.
Tip #3: Build Review Cycles Into Your Workflow
Now let’s talk about working with our human coworkers.
If you’re like me, you like working alone. You trust yourself enough to know it’s easier to get things done when you are the one making all the decisions, but let’s be honest, that’s not actually true.
We should have others review our work regularly. Others will see things differently and often find things we miss, such as missing punctuation, run-on sentences, or even ideas that make little to no sense.
In fact this blog, although drafted by me, is reviewed by a content manager to be sure it’s grammatically correct and that I’m not saying anything offensive or crazy. And trust me, it will be better for the reader because of this review, because sometimes me no talk or write good.
When I’m building a course, I typically plan for a number of reviews with my team. Some of those are for content needs, others are purely for proofreading. Ultimately, each one makes the content created incrementally better with each pass. The number of review cycles is entirely up to you. But trust me, they help.
Tip #4: Manage Access and Permissions Strategically
Although working with collaborators is awesome, you do want to be careful about how much input you are getting and from where. Often, everyone will want to be helpful, but you really don’t need everyone on the team (or in the company) providing their thoughts.
Be strategic with who you have review content to avoid accidentally creating a camel, which is just a horse designed by a committee (or so I hear from NBC’s Parks and Recreation). When it comes to input, more does not always mean better. Sometimes, fewer people with more focus and role definition can create infinitely better results.
Wrapping This Up
Our work life is changing. AI is becoming a more crucial part of our work, offering many opportunities to expand what we are capable of when used appropriately. We also still work with amazing people and get our best results from collaborating effectively with them. We just have to figure out how we are going to work with these new tools and the people who make our work better.
One tool that leverages both AI and human collaboration is MicroBuilder. In the last Learning Lab LIVE session, I showed how AI and human collaboration work together to help produce awesome content. Give it a watch and maybe even give it a spin for yourself.